1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a local search method and system, more particularly to a local search method and system utilizing a predefined symbol to distinguish between a content condition and a location condition in a search condition word string.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, portable electronic devices, such as personal navigation assistants (PNA), intelligent mobile phones, etc., provide bi-directional connected navigation services, in which real-time location-based service (LBS) is provided by a server to portable electronic devices, and local search can be conducted by the portable electronic devices to obtain real-time dynamic information, such as traffic conditions, weather conditions, etc., based on their current locations.
The so-called “local search” is realized by combining search technology with e-Maps and e-Yellow pages, and may be implemented in a web page and a portable electronic device for obtaining information related to daily lives of the user, such as transportation, food, leisure activity, work, etc.
A first conventional local search system provides simultaneously on a display screen two fields for user input respectively of a content search condition and a location search condition in order to initiate a search. For example, if it is desired to search for cafés in Taipei, the word string “café” is inputted in the field corresponding to the content search condition and the word string “Taipei” is inputted in the field corresponding to the location search condition. However, providing two fields simultaneously takes up quite a lot of the relatively small screen space of the portable electronic device.
A second conventional local search system is designed such that the two fields are displayed in sequence, with the display of the second field appearing only after input of the first field has been completed and the first field has disappeared from the display screen.
However, for both the first and second conventional local search systems, the search can only be initiated when there is input in both fields. In other words, it is not possible to launch a search when it is desired to search for a certain content without specifying a location.
Moreover, if search results are abundant, data transmission fee may reach a significant amount. There are currently no local search methods that can assist a user in restricting the scope of his/her search. From the foregoing, it is evident that there is room for improvement in the field of local search for portable electronic devices.